Clueless cops turn sitting ducks in Naxal land

Agencies.Raipur, May 13:
This month Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh have killed over 30 people, most of them security personnel. Security experts are saying the police are not following "basic points" of insurgency warfare and were thus often reduced to "sitting ducks".

The latest bout of criticism has come after 12 policemen and the driver of one of their buses were killed Sunday in the state's Dhamtari district, a new area of operation for the rebels, who had earlier been concentrated further south in the state's Bastar region.

In Dhamtari, about 150 armed rebels ambushed a 41-strong police team travelling in three vehicles. As the rebels' landmine blast tossed the vehicles up in the air, the Maoists started spraying bullets at the hapless policemen.

For about 16 hours, the police headquarters here did not have a clear idea of what had happened. Only around noon Monday did the officials say 12 men of their district force and a driver had been killed. Several of the bodies were found disfigured and charred and police are still to match each name to each mutilated body.

"The tenets of jungle warfare must be followed. I keep advising trainees they must follow 48 points and on top of the list is never use vehicles in jungle roads for operation purposes," Brigadier (retd.) B.K. Ponwar, director of the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College (CTJWC), said.

"Vehicles should be used only for carriage of ration, stores and ammunition. But the forces are not following the basic points."

The CTJWC was set up by the Chhattisgarh government in 2005 in Kanker town of Bastar region, hardly 50 km from the site where guerrillas attacked the police convoy in Dhamtari. The college is meant to train policemen to "take on guerrillas like a guerrilla".

"As long as warfare points are not followed the policemen will continue to get killed as happened in Dhamtari. I don't know who ordered forces to go inside a hilly area riding vehicles without the road being cleared of landmines," Ponwar said.

"I keep insisting in warfare training for the policemen to go into the jungles with multi-directional assault plan but no one is ready to follow these basic things despite knowing 95 percent casualties in Chhattisgarh are linked to landmine blasts."

Before Sunday's killings, on May 5, a senior leader of state's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was shot dead in Rajnandgaon district and a day after rebels ambushed 11 people included seven policemen in Dantewada district.

On May 7, the insurgents brutally killed Pharasgaon police station in-charge Abdul Wahid Khan in full public view in Narayanpur district. The killing took place within 150 metres of Pharasgaon police station and a camp of the Central Reserve Police Force's 39th battalion but no one intervened.

The string of attacks forced Chief Minister Raman Singh to chair an emergency meet with top police officers here May 8. After the meeting, Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar announced: "Police will answer bullets with bullets and there will be no peace talk with rebels by the state government".

The rebels responded within two days with the ambush at Dhamtari, which was carefully planned, with the policemen led into a trap by a tipoff which proved to be fake.

A senior officer at police headquarters here said Tuesday: "We are still not sure which officer took the decision to send a 41-member convoy, most of them constables of the District Force, without a senior officer to lead them. It looks like they were just led into a trap. There was not even any back-up. Other forces reached the spot 16 hours after the ambush, just to collect the disfigured bodies."

Another senior police officer who has spent years in Bastar told: "We do not seem to have a strategy now. We haven't had one since April, when (Director General of Police) Vishwaranjan, was forced to go on long leave by the Election Commission.

"As far as I can see, the police force deployed for anti-Maoist operations is now just acting as sitting ducks. There is no coordination at the higher levels. We're just hoping against hope that we can prevail against Maoists."

Central Chronicle

Long will live the Naxalite movement - Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri

Mark my words, the day is not far when they(Maoists) will rule a grand majority of India. These 200 districts will become 400 in no time, and inch towards more. No government in India will be able to stop their growth through police, Salva Judums or army. - Arindam Chaudhari (Management Guru and author of The Great Indian Dream )

The exact date of this article is not known...

Arindam Chaudhuri - IT’S NOT THEM, BUT INDIA’S CRONY CAPITALISM, WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CHHATTISGARH MASSACRE . . .

If you have been following popular media, then you must by now be of the viewpoint that Naxalites are India’s largest growing menace; and you must be pitying the 60 plus people left dead in the Chhattisgarh massacre, thanks to the Naxalites. The truth, however, is not that simple. The Naxalite movement in India is growing; that’s a truth. They are a menace to the Centre; that’s a truth. But Naxalites a menace to India? Well, perhaps this is farthest from the truth. In cities where we lead a cushy life, Naxalites are far from a menace. In the interiors where they rule, they aren’t really considered a menace either. They rule the Indian villages and backward areas – well, that’s an understatement – they are the emperors of a third of Indian districts today. Yes, 200 out of the 600 odd districts in India are today under Naxalite rule.

They rule there not because they are a menace. They rule there not just by force. They rule there because people in these places support them in a majority and believe in them; because the Naxalites are the brave armed revolutionaries in their lives who give them food, money and land snatched from the rich land owners and exploiters. Naxalites do kill when these rich protest; and at times are involved in atrocities as well . . . But on the whole, they are the only revolutionary group in this country at the centre of whose agenda are the poor and deprived. Their methods may involve violence, but then worldwide, all uprisings and revolutions have been violent. To the people against whom they fight, they are villains – terrorists if you may call them – but the people for whom they fight, they are the heroes.

And these Naxalites in India are there to stay and grow. Mark my words, the day is not far when they will rule a grand majority of India. These 200 districts will become 400 in no time, and inch towards more. No government in India will be able to stop their growth through police, Salva Judums (the Chhattisgarh version of State-backed armed forces of villagers and common men) or army. The police in this country have no loyalty for the Central leadership, and would too willingly hand over their arms to the Naxalites; police station after police station, at every given opportunity. For the police, their life is too precious, and many actually believe in the Naxals. On the other hand, the army will march on the streets while the Naxals fight from the jungles and places inaccessible by road.

So even the army stands no chance as has been proven in the North-East. Yes, the army might succeed if it uses the aerial route to bomb and create an internal war throughout India. No government in India will ever be able to do so. That leaves us with the criminal experiment of forcing the common people to become SPOs – Special Police Officers – by giving them some pathetic basic training in arms, the way Salva Judum is doing. This method has failed miserably earlier in North-East and Kashmir and is sure to fail everywhere, including in Chhattisgarh.

More importantly, the method in itself is criminal in nature and leaves the people-soldiers with nowhere to go – like in Chhattisgarh where villages after villages have been emptied and people have been brought to camps where they are given one small windowless room per family to stay in. The connection is ironic! When the State finds its own police machinery ill-equipped and dying, they conjure up a scheme where, instead of the police officers, those are the villagers – very often child soldiers – who have to confront Naxalites during their attacks, and die. More pathetically, it’s a trap from which the villagers can’t come out. If they go back to their villages where they had their land etc., they will be alone and would be killed by Naxalites for having become members of Salva Judum.

And if they stay, they will die in any case in a confrontation, or out of hunger itself – since in the camps, the government doesn’t even provide them with proper meals, and keeps them in near destitute conditions. In Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh itself (where the recent massacre took place), there are 20 Salva Judum camps with about 60,000 occupants living in utterly inhuman conditions, where they get food for about five days in a week, and the rest two days, go hungry. The camps, of course, have no toilets or bathrooms. And worse, they have to share the facilities with CRPF jawans (Naga battalion) who, after evening hours, get drunk and start inhuman torture on these people, women mainly. Rapes and abortions galore and the people have absolutely no voice. And on 15 March 2007, the Naxalites, who were looking for their chance to get back, attacked and left about 60 dead – more than two-thirds were these helpless people forcibly made to vacate their land and join this inhuman camp with the legal approval of the Centre and State.

Were the police innocent? Well, it depends; if you call the bribe seeking, soul selling perpetrators of the State’s crime machinery ‘innocent’, that is. But yes, those members of Salva Judum were innocent victims of this criminal governance. And this is just one case, many more will follow soon while we condemn the Naxalites blindly.

Who then is to blame? Clearly our Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers of successive governments. Let’s take this year’s budget for example. For the ‘land loot schemes’ of the government – popularly known as the SEZs – there has been an allocation of Rs 90,000 crore. For various subsidies that have gone into the corporate kitty, there has been another Rs 2,35,000 crore (that is, a shamelessly gross Rs 3,25,000 crore for the minuscule top rich in India). Guess how much has been allocated then for unemployment eradication programmes that were to guarantee at least ‘100 days job’ per person if the government meant to remove unemployment seriously.

Well, against a most urgent requirement of about Rs 2,25,000 crore, the allocation is a meagre Rs 11,000 crore. If the poor in a country are left to die out of hunger, curable diseases and poverty, Naxalites will rule. The only way to defeat them is for our governments to believe in fact in what the Naxalites are fighting for – food, health and employment. Till our governments allocate enough for such causes, many more Chhattisgarh carnages will happen; and unfortunately, I won’t be able to blame the Naxalites, or even call them terrorists.

It’s the State that is monstrous, and those are our Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers who have to realise the importance of working for the poor for the real future of India. Right now, they are instead busy giving thrust to crony capitalism – helping a few industrial houses acquire more and more land and public property. Chhattisgarh is no exception – while villages are being emptied, people are being uprooted and shifted to their Salva Judum death camps, with their mineral and iron-ore rich lands left behind being handed over to the Tatas and Mittals. And as long as India’s crony capitalism and heartless journey towards being a slave of the rich continues, long will live the Naxalite movement in India. Fortunately or unfortunately . . .

Link..

Public Rally against Salwa Judum in Dantewada

More than 200,000 adivasi's marched against the genocidal salwa judum campaign
and so called development of the Chhattisgarh government on the 14th November 2006.

A huge rally was taken out in Dantewada to protest against Salwa Judum and illegal land acquisition by private firms like Tata and Essar. Adivasis from as far as Konta (200km from Dantewada) walked for days to participate in it. Originally the district administration denied permission to the CPI , under whose auspices the rally was conducted. They had to relent when Chhattisgarh high court asked them to allow it. This is a video of that rally. You can hear the slogans,
'Salwa Judum band Karo" - Shut down Salwa Judum !

"Mahendra Karma chor hai" - Mahendra Karma(leader of SJ) is a thief.

"Essar hai-hai". - Death to Essare Mining company.A notorious mafia conglomerate that has looted thousands of crores of mineral wealth.


Link to video

Salwa Judum Photo Essay

Salwa Judum - Images capturing the genocidal campaign being waged against the
adivasi's by Government Of India

All images taken from this flickr stream

Photographer Scott Carney's blog
http://www.scottcarneyonline.com/blog/2007/10/salwa-judum-and-missing-ak-47s.html

Counter Insurgency Expert Jason Miklian examines his notes on the Naxal - Salwa Judum conflict.

A Salwa Judum runt poses with his new toy
This man says he is 24, but he joined the Salwa Judum at the age of 12. He is now a special police officer--a nebulous post that does not have the training of a full police officer.


This man used to fight for the Naxals but now has switched sides to help the police hunt down his former friends. Switching sides has made his family a target. Naxals killed his brother in retribution. Now he leads police raids. The day before this photo was taken he was shot in the arm.

Deadly Dodo's
In central India a government funded militia is waging war against communist insurgents. The war has gotten out of control and now many civilians are being pulled into the conflict. As of this year over 100,000 people are living in refugee camps. These two members of the Salwa Judum militia act as scouts for the police during raids. The boy on the right was shot in the arm the day before I took this photo.

A sikh police officer diffuses a IED.


Explosive paste from a confiscated IED. Last year over 12 tons of this material was lost from a local mine.


A string of detonators found in a roadside IED placed by Naxal militants. These sorts of bombs are easy to make and are among the most effective weapons in the conflict.


Two AK-47s confiscated from Naxal militants in central Chattisgarh. They are sealed as police evidence.



Around the Salwa Judum militia camps there are hundreds of burned out houses and villages. This empty house was a suspected Naxal hideout. More often than not the Salwa Judum attack villages at random in their fight against Maoism. The numbers of civilian casualties are staggering.



A police officer aims a machine gun through a fence outside a station in Jagdalpur.


One of Chhattisgarh's Most Wanted Criminals -
Ram Bhushan Kushuah - Notorious gangster and psychopathic serial killer strikes a pose with mercenaries of the
Salwa Judum .

India's new warlords are armed by the police to fight the Naxals. This man, Ram Bhuvan Kushuah is feared througout the district. People say that he is responsible for thousands of killings.



BLOOD IRON
The conflict sits on top of one of the most valuable iron mines in Asia. This shot from inside a steam shovel in Bacheli, Chhattisgarh. Some people allege that Salwa Judum only exists to free up land for mining contracts, and is not really a fight against communism.

This massive steam shovel was attacked by Naxals a month before I arrived. Naxals target mining infrastructure because they say local people don't reap any benefit from the multi-billion dollar industry.
(Unfortunately the damage was temporary and the machine has been repaired )

Christopher Kindo is the Deputy Director of Mining in Chhattisgarh. he says that he doesn't understand why Naxals keep attacking his equipment.
(Aaahhh..... the innocence dripping from his face could melt anyone's heart)



The mining machinery in Chhattisgarh comes from an American company and sells for half a million dollars per truck. This massive load puller can hold several tons of top grade iron which eventually ends up in building projects across India and Japan. The mines are a central target of Naxal militants.


A malnourished adivasi lies staring into space, too weak to work as a slave in a
Salwa Judum concentration camp.His ancestors left him mineral reserves which are worth
several thousand trillion dollars at current market rates.
But he remains a beggar...



World War II Concentration Camp - Jews were forced to dig their
own graves after which they were lined up in their graves and shot
dead.


“Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work makes one free).

A mining official looks on near a Salwa Judum concentration camp while
children slave on to make a road that will eventually
hasten the loot of their land ,their own destruction
and all the time taking them one step closer to their final solution.

Anti-Maoism, McCarthyism And The Indian State

Being the only “policeman” who “has ever risen to so much influence in India”, Indian National Security Adviser MK Narayanan seldom minces words in revealing the designs of the Indian State for “national security”. He recently pronounced the focus of the state’s strategy against leftist militancy in the country. In an interview to The Straits Times, he clearly emphasised that it is the intellectual appeal of the Maoists that is letting down the Indian state in its fight against the Maoists. “…[W]e haven’t been able to break their intellectual appeal that they seem to still have”.

M.K Narayan

Narayanan further adds that “large numbers of the intellectual elite and civil liberties bodies provide a backup to the movement in terms of agitprop and other activities”. The fact that the Maoists “are still able to get support of intellectual classes is disturbing. Unless we can divorce the two … [defeating the Maoists] is not that easy”.

When asked if the Maoists are getting outside support, he said, “we have not seen any kind of infusion of arms or ammunition”. However it is the “educated elite…that gives them a connection to the outside world”. Evidently, it is that “connection” which needs to be broken.
In order to sever this “connection”, the Indian state must find intellectual escape-goats (like the McCarthyite era in the US had the Rosenbergs and others) to terrorise the “educated elite”. Hence, we have Binayak Sen, Ajay TG… And the list is daily growing.

What is anyway McCarthyism? Truman, not a leftist by any means, defined it as “the corruption of truth, the abandonment of the due process of law. It is the use of the big lie and the unfounded accusation against any citizen in the name of Americanism or security. It is the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spreading of fear and the destruction of faith in every level of society.”

So with the ideologies of Indianism/Hinduism and security defining every move of the Indian state, aren’t we in the same situation?

Should we be surprised by the National Human Rights Commission’s submission to the Supreme Court regarding Salwa Judum’s atrocities leaked by the Economic Times? The official human rights body “found that many of the allegations [against Salwa Judum] were based on rumours and hearsay, and devoid of facts. Again, many of the villagers whose names figured in the column comprising victims of Salwa Judum or the security forces were actually found to have been killed by Naxalites.

FIRs had been registered in most of these cases and the state government had also doled out compensation to relatives of those killed. NHRC teams also discovered many of the villagers whose names figured in the list were actually Naxalites who had been killed in encounters with the security forces. A few other villagers were found to have died of natural causes, while yet another group of villagers whose names figured in the list of dead were actually found to be alive”.

NHRC’s arguments here are quite clear and very logical - if Salwa Judum or the security forces killed somebody, (s)he must be a naxalite; if (s)he is not a naxalite, then it’s obvious that (s)he was killed by the naxalites.

Isn’t this their “truth”, or Truman’s “corruption of truth”?

Morung Express

If you want to read the disgusting lies of the NHRC that is considered to be
news by the MSM-- you can read it below

NHRC gives thumbs up to Salwa Judum

Security at what cost?

Martin Luther King, Jr. once told
"Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"...once again time has come to ask ourselves what are we doing for Dr. Binayak Sen...?


Garimella Subramaniam

Chhattisgarh’s Special Public Security Act under fire

Chhattisgarh’s champion of rural public health and civil liberties, Binayak Sen, has been incarcerated in Raipur’s Central Jail for over three months. His detention under the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA) 2005 brings into focus the government’s dangerous strategy of countering Maoist insurgency with state-sponsored private armed militias, with grave implications for the exercise of fundamental rights.

The immediate provocation for the judicial remand of this medical missionary, of no religious denomination, on May 14 was the campaign he led to spotlight the killing last March of seven adivasis in Bastar. But the arrest is part of a pattern of repression by the Raman Singh government to quell democratic opposition to plans for large scale acquisition of the mineral-rich tribal land.

No incriminating evidence

It took the police over two months and repeated adjournments from the courts to file a charge sheet. Even so, the voluminous document fails to provide any incriminating evidence against Dr. Sen. Allusion to his many authorised visits to the jail to counsel undertrials — in his capacity as State general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties — is a case in point. The High Court, while rejecting the police demand for remanding Dr. Sen to the custody of the investigating agencies, denied him bail.

The Salwa Judum, a voluntary association of land-owners and contractors backed by the state, has, since 2005, unleashed a reign of terror. Thousands of adivasis have been removed from more than 600 villages in Dantewada district alone. The National Commission for Women and other independent fact-finding teams have highlighted the atrocities committed by Salwa Judum, including assaults on and killing of women, torching of houses, and extortion of illegal levy from passing vehicles.

A public interest litigation filed in this connection has alleged a complete breakdown of the civil administration and sought the Supreme Court’s intervention for the restoration of the rule of law. Eminent personalities, including Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, renowned social critic Noam Chomsky, and Booker-Prize winning author Arundhati Roy, have rallied behind Dr. Sen.

Dr. Sen has for three decades been at the forefront of unravelling the connections between endemic poverty, disease, food security, and macro-economic policies. Elements of the alternative model he pioneered include advocacy of oral medication over intra-muscular injections, a validated mechanism for timely diagnosis of malaria and tuberculosis, and supply of low-cost medicines. This distinguished alumnus of the Christian Medical College, Vellore, served on the official committee for the ‘Mitanin’ programme to train 60,000 women health workers, launched by the previous Ajit Jogi government.

Recent events are a fallout of the overtly political character of Dr. Sen’s social activism. For example, he challenged the CSPSA even before it received presidential assent. The High Court dismissed his petition; but to him, that outcome only underlined the need to raise public awareness about the arbitrary law.

The State can, for instance, declare any organisation as unlawful without specifying reasons and slap a three-year sentence on its members. It can dub routine acts of free expression and association as unlawful activities and pronounce a seven-year imprisonment on those that it disapproves of. As the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative points out, the two-year sentence under the CSPSA for protecting members of an unlawful organisation can be used to harass persons who are forced to shelter to armed groups.

Political parties of the Left and democratic mainstream, including the Congress and the Communist parties, have called for the Chhattisgarh law to be scrapped and, by implication, for Dr. Sen’s release.

The Hindu

Chhattisgarh For Chopper Surveillance In Maoist Den

Chhattisgarh- where state is waging a war against its own people

Concerned by a surge in Maoist activities, the Chhattisgarh government has issued a tender notice to hire a helicopter for police surveillance in the worst hit Bastar region.'Hiring a 20-seater helicopter is a strategic decision taken by the state government after formal approval of the union home ministry. We cannot afford to allow the extremists to consolidate their bases in thick forested areas where forces cannot reach by road as the area is cordoned off by landmines,' home department sources told IANS.The move is aimed at boosting surveillance in the interiors of Bastar, including the Abujhmad region where guerrillas have reportedly set up war training and explosives manufacturing units.The tender issued Aug 13 says interested parties should submit their proposal within 10 days 'with details of charges per flying hour, minimum flying commitment per month, agreement for stand by helicopter ... and compensation for non-availability of helicopter during urgent operational requirements'.Though the state government has issued the tender notice, the amount spent on the chopper will be reimbursed by the central government, the sources said on condition of anonymity.Chhattisgarh currently has no helicopter facility to keep a watch on Maoists. There are no choppers to even carry leaders and VIPs on official visits after the state's lone helicopter 'Maina' crashed in a hilly region of neighbouring Madhya Pradesh's Balaghat district last month. Maoists hold sway in Chhattisgarh's southern Bastar region where rebels have been running a parallel government in interior areas for decades. The mineral rich state has emerged as the nerve centre of the radicals. In March, Maoists carried one of their biggest attacks on a police camp in Bastar where 55 police personnel were massacred. Last month, rebels killed 24 cops in a mortar attack in the same region.

http://newspostindia.com/

Video of Dr Binayak Sen

Mass protests all over Chhattisgarh calling for release of Dr Binayak Sen

Link to video

Tags: video, dr, binayak, sen, narayan, sanyal, pucl, raipur jail, police, state repression, human rights violations

Doctor who treated poor children now behind jails - The strange story of Dr binayak sen

New Delhi: A law-abiding citizen who was actively involved in community service in Chattisgarh has been put behind bars. His crime? He investigated a few fake encounter cases in the Naxalite hit districts of the state.

Dr Binayak Sen has been languishing in Raipur jail for the past three-months. Even though the state government has no incriminating evidence against him, he has been charged with promoting Naxalite outfits in the state.

Sen used to teach community health workers, ways of treating common ailments like, malaria and cholera. He was an integral part of backward Chhatisgarh's rural health care scheme.

But for the past two-years Dr Sen had drawn himself into investigating fake encounter cases in the Naxalite-affected districts, Dantewara and Bastar.

He reportedly criticized the way the government was promoting Salwa Judum—an anti Naxalite movement and also raised questions on “fake encounters” taking place in the state.

A 750-page chargesheet was slapped on him in which he was charged with having links with Naxalites.

Prima facie, the chargesheet does not have enough incriminating evidence against Sen.

It simply insists on implicating Dr Sen for having visited a Maoist functionary, Narayan Sanyal in the Raipur jail 33 times.

Dr Sen says he was treating the ailing 70-year old prisoner Sanyal. But the government thinks otherwise. Sen has been charged with “criminal offense” for visiting the ailing terrorist in the jail.

The government officials have turned a deaf ear to human right activists as well who demand Sen's release on humanitarian grounds and lack of evidence against him.

“When scores of people are gunned down, no one bothers. Everyone is so concerned about one man’s arrest,” said Chief Minister Raman Singh.

The 750 page chargesheet slapped on Dr Sen insists he was a Naxalite who helped other Naxal groups, treated them and carried their letters. But Dr Sen's friends disagree.

“We have time and again condemned all the violent acts of all parties including the Maoists,” said human rights activist Raju Syal.

Gradually voices of protest are being heard. Doctors all over the country especially those from his alma mater, Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, have gone on a massive signature campaign against the alleged “fake” charges slapped on Sen.

It’s been over three months now that Dr Binayak has been in jail. The protests have already begun gaining momentum. Those who are protesting are keenly aware that it’s a long battle ahead of them.

For the family, these are trying times. His wife Illina and two daughters hope justice will prevail,” We hope on the 60th independence day the charges against Binayak will be lifted and he will be released,” said Illina.

The local health care workers are now on a campaign pressing the government for Sen’s release. But the government has not responded, nor has any investigation been done to prove the charges while Sen remains in jail.

Tags: binayak sen, jail, doctor, bastar, dantewara, fake encounter

Chhattisgarh To Check NGOs In Maoist Hotbed

Chhattisgarh is closely monitoring the work of dozens of NGOs, many of them funded by the government, following reports that Maoists may be getting money from some of them in Bastar region.

Official sources said the government has received inputs that many NGOs active in education, child and women development sectors were helping the rebels financially in Bastar's 40,000 sq km area where Maoist guerrillas are known to run a parallel government.

'Over 250 NGOs are active in Bastar region and some 40-50 of them get funds from government for social and welfare activities. We feel that millions (of rupees) from government funds are being diverted to the extremists,' a home department official said. 'The government is closely monitoring their work.

'Once it is confirmed that money is going to revolutionary Maoists, we will come hard on the NGOs,' the official said.

Newspostindia

Tags: NGO's, bastar, msf, sensationalism, propoganda, police

No flag hoisting in 500 villages in Chhattisgarh

JAGDALPUR: Flag hoisting ceremony will not be held in more than 500 villages in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh on Independence Day on Wednesday, as these villages had been deserted and 157 schools in the area closed down due to the hostilities between Maoist naxalites and security forces.

Residents of the deserted villages are being held forcibly held in concentration camps run by BJP ministers where they barely manage to survive.Dozens have died from lack of proper healthcare and basic facilities in these concentration camps.

About 157 Ashram (residential) schools in Dantewada district in Bastar division have been closed as a result of the "Scorched Earth" policy followed by Salwa Judum activists( A state sponsered anti-maoist campaign)to evict tribals which was launched in June 2005 with government support so that the land liberated could then be handed over to mining corporations.. More than 500 villages have also been deserted.

About 12 of the 16 districts in Chhattisgarh have been declared naxalite-affected .

DNA

Tags: independence, day, august, 15th, black day, salwa judum, bastar

Vedanta group conning Indian people

Anil Agrawal - Owner Vedanta Group,Erstwhile Balco and now Sterlite,Korba,Chhattisgarh

Raman Singh- Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh

Nexus- Both exploiting the Indigenous People of Chhattisgarh

Facts- Vedanta Group sold electricity to the State Government at higher rates on the pretext that they have to Import coal.
Its been three years and not a single piece of coal has been imported.

Thousands of acres of land has been forcefully occupied by the Vedanta Group at Korba but State Government has not taken any action so far.Is it because Electricity Department is under Raman Singh?????


Today 08/08/07 foundation is being laid for Vedanta Groups Cancer Hospital and Research Center at Raipur

and also a MOU is being signed by Vedanta Group with the State Government for the expansion of their Balco Unit

at Korba.


Irony- Produce Cancer Patients by polluting the environment at Korba and then send them to their Cancer Hospital at Raipur

via bhumkal

Tags: Vendanta, criminal corporation, loot, mineral wealth, exploitation, industrial pollution, corruption

This is not a story about Binayak Sen

This is not a story of the fifty plus children’s doctor Binayak Sen from Raipur, Chhattisgarh who is at present languishing in jail under the draconian provisions of a law which has declared him a ‘terrorist’ because he had the courage to speak truth to power.

This is not meant to be a story of two young daughters of this man who are eagerly waiting for their father who is one of their closest friends and with whom they have shared all the secrets of the world.

Dr Binayak Sen in Jail

This is not a story of Illina, whose companion-ship with Binayak exceeds more than three decades, and who recently penned down her experiences at the jail gate, where ordinary people—who want to have a glimpse of their near and dear ones lodged in the jail—are even robbed of their last penny by the custodians of law and order.

This is also not a story of those kids from nearby villages who joined a protest demonstration held in Raipur to express their bewilderment over the arrest of their doctor uncle who used to tell them interesting stories when he could find some free time at the community clinics.

This also not meant to tell you my first meeting with this gem of a man way back in 1981 in Dalit Rajhara, district Durg where the legendary Shankar Guha Niyogi had charted a new path in workers’ struggle and where the idea to start a Shahid Hospital—a hospital by workers of the mines for the other toiling masses of the area—was germinating then.

This is also not a story of the institution called Vellore Medical College which felt honoured to have produced a student of such calibre and felicitated him for his conscious decision to work for the poor and the downtrodden. This is also not a story of the manner in which ex-students of this college who are spread in different parts of the world have taken the initiative to mobilise the medical community of the world to tell the powers that be that the proper place for a children’s doctor should be among children and their parents and not the confines of a jail.

This is also not a story of the work Dr Sen did as an adviser to the community health scheme of the state called ‘Mitanin’ nor a description of the programme wherein he was awarded the prestigious Paul Harrison award for his commendable work in community health.

This is also not a story of the appeal sent by world renowned individuals/activists like Noam Chomsky, Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib etc. who felt ‘dismayed’ at the ‘continued detention of Sen’ and who have demanded that all charges against Dr Sen be dropped immediately and he be released forthwith.

Of course, nor is it a report of the widening ambit of state harassment which today includes Illina Sen, Gautam Bandopadhyaya, Rashmi Dwivedi, Rajendra Sail—members of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and other organisations who have refused to bow before the machinations of the state machinery. It is the same state machinery which has acquired Dracula-like qualities of bumping off innocents and which did not have any qualms going to the ridiculous extent of arresting Dr Sen as an ‘emissary of a Naxalite’ when the said meetings were held in the presence of police themselves.

This is not a critique of the manner in which a broad section of the media preferred to toe the government line and putting all journalistic ethical norms to the winds presented sensational, juicy stories to demonise this ex-adviser to the State Government on its community health schemes.

This is also not a story of the frightening message on wireless sent by a Superintendent of Police stationed in one of those ‘troubled districts’ in Chhattisgarh itself which clearly instructed the armed police to target journalists, individuals who seem to be overzealous about the question of human rights.

This also does not deal with the so-called Peace Campaign called Salwa Judum—where a section of the tribals have been armed at the behest of the government and who have become a law unto themselves, where they have been found to be burning villages and abusing their women. It also does not deal with the manner in which this ‘Peace Campaign’ has uprooted more than 40,000 villagers and placed them in camps along the road, reminding people of the failed “strategic hamlets” used by the US military in South Vietnam more than forty years ago.

This write-up does not intend to once again bring to the fore the grief of a mother called Madiyam Soni (there are thousands of such women) from a non-descript village Ponjer whose son’s life was snuffed out by the security forces and whose body was found with similar eleven bodies at a place called Santoshpur much farther from her village.


TO be very frank, all such insignificant sounding details about ordinary people’s ordinary lives, their travails and tribulations, and the response of the powers that be towards their attempts to aspire for a normal life with dignity is not the crux of this write-up. One very well knows that neither do they carry any import for the custodians of this country nor the articulate sections of our society. Perhaps all such details from the hinterland of India are meaningless for the young generation also which is busy networking with friends from the other parts of the globe thanks to the various websites which have sprung up.

This is in fact a story of all those people who have rather stopped thinking about all these relevant things.

This is in fact a story of the continuous bombardment of messages through various channels which has rather desensitised a greater lot among us towards the mundane looking sufferings of the people.

This is in fact a story of the criminal silence which all such stories, reports normally encounter—whether they be the declaration of a children’s doctor as ‘Public Enemy No. 1’ or for that matter fake encounter killings in some hinterland of India.

This is in fact a story of reassessing whose lives we should value and prioritise.

This is in fact a story of getting ready to ask some discomforting questions about the system in which we live.

Perhaps the need of the hour seems to be to start with a simple query: When would the two daughters meet their father?

mainstreamweekly.com

Tags: binayak sen, doctor, state terror, human rights, subhash gatonde, vellore medical college, shankar guha niyogi, naxalite, maoist, journalist, fake encounter

Asleep in Chhattisgarh - Ajai Sahni

It is not clear whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was able to sleep after he heard the news of the 24 policemen slaughtered by Maoists in the forests of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh on July 9, 2007, but it is clear that this incident did not merit a public reaction from him, in contrast to his fervently articulated anguish over the suffering of the parents of alleged Indian terrorists arrested in London and Australia. This is unsurprising, considering the sheer frequency of such incidents.


It is less than four months after Maoists massacred 55 policemen on March 15 at Rani Bodli in the Bijapur District. And, Maoists have already butchered a total of 119 security forces personnel in Chhattisgarh in 2007 (till July 15), in at least 31 significant attacks on the forces. The Prime Minister of India cannot be expected to respond to so quotidian a succession of events.


Significantly, the total Maoist fatalities in Chhattisgarh in 2007 stood at 58 on July 15 - more than two security forces personnel killed for each Maoist fatality. It is clear where the initiative lies in the conflict.


The growth of Maoist power in Chhattisgarh has been systematic and pre-planned, based on a tactical decision taken in December 1999 - January 2000 by the then People's War Group to permanently locate all important party cadre in the forest areas of the Dandakaranya 'Special Zone', principally centring around the unsurveyed and near-impenetrable Abujhmadh forest in the Bastar division of Chhattisgarh, which has since been declared the Maoist's 'Central Guerrilla Base Area'.


Seven years is a long time in a counter-insurgency context, but while the Maoists have vigorously built their movement now afflicting as many as 16 of Chhattisgarh's 20 police districts - the State's responses have been abysmal. Despite the hysteria that each major attack provokes, the tasks of capacity building have been persistently neglected.


Force deficits are endemic. The all-India average police-population ratio stands at 122 per 100,000. The UN norm for minimum police strength is 222 per 100,000 (1:450). Most Western countries have ratios between 250 and 500 per 100,000. Chhattisgarh has a sanctioned strength of 103 per 100,000.


The crisis is compounded by a tremendous gap between sanctioned and available force. In the Maoist-affected areas, deficits at certain ranks may be as high as 79 per cent (in Bastar division, only eight of 38 sanctioned posts for SIs were filled at the end of 2006). In the ranks from DSP to SSP, the deficit (as on December 31, 2005) was 29.9 per cent; at the rank of Sub-Inspector and Assistant Sub-Inspector, it was 36.6 per cent. Crucial posts in Maoist-affected areas remain vacant for extended periods of time, and as the police-population ratio indicates, sanctioned posts are themselves well below the needs of the State.


The ratio of police personnel to the total area of the State is also very poor. The all-India average stands at 42 per 100 square kilometres. The figure for Chhattisgarh is just 17 per 100 square kilometres. In the Bastar Division - the heart of Maoist violence - the ratio of sanctioned force is 5.62, and of actual deployment, just 3.55 per 100 square kilometres.


Efforts have been made to 'fill' this gap with Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMFs), but their numbers are a tiny fraction of requirements. Some 85 companies of CRPF are currently available for the whole of Chhattisgarh. By contrast, Manipur, a State of about 2.4 million people, has a police-population ratio of 535 per 100,000, and in addition has almost 350 companies of CPMFs deployed for counter-insurgency. Manipur's geographical area is just over half the Bastar division and the population of Chhattisgarh is almost nine times that of Manipur.


Worse, the utilisation of manpower is inefficient and unproductive. A bulk of forces has been kept out of the areas of intensive conflict. The Chhattisgarh Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School had, by February 2007, trained 2,590 police officers and men. A majority of these trained personnel are, however, deployed for static duties and in urban areas, reflecting a tremendous waste of trained manpower.


Of the total force in Chhattisgarh - State and Central - no more that 1,800 to 2,000 personnel are engaged in offensive counter-terrorist operations. More than 80 per cent of available force is deployed for passive defence. Crucially, the available force in the affected areas is simply too small and dispersed even to protect itself. In the Bastar division, for instance, an additional force of over 80 companies is required to protect existing police stations, police posts and important Government establishments and projects. Paramilitary forces, moreover, have obvious difficulties in operating in unfamiliar and difficult geographical and cultural terrain, and are starved of operational intelligence.


In the absence of basic capacities and will, other 'force multipliers' are destined to inevitable failure. Thus, the introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles to detect Maoist concentrations in the forests failed to produce results in the absence of rapid follow-up action. Some hare-brained schemes are now being conjured as a quick fix, based on a questionable understanding of the 'Andhra Model'. Reports suggest that 'a dozen' Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs) of 'crack commandos' are shortly to be deployed in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, to be "air dropped in dense forests" to launch swift guerrilla operations.


What is missed out is that the Greyhounds in Andhra Pradesh operate within a pervasive policing environment that has been systematically strengthened and that has established overwhelming capacities for containment of Maoist operations. With small groups of Maoists dispersed over limited forest areas, and possessing relatively insignificant residual capacities for resistance, these groups are vulnerable to focussed attack by a highly trained and rapidly deployed force.


Within an enveloping environment of the breakdown of policing, the dominance of wide areas by the Maoists, and little capacity for immediate and massive reinforcement, a QRT dropped into a jungle would, in most cases, be overwhelmed and slaughtered.


State police sources estimate that the Maoists in Chhattisgarh have an armed cadre of over 5,000, equipped with sophisticated assault weapons, landmines and explosives. These 'full-time revolutionaries' are backed by at least 20,000 'people's militia'. The sympathetic base on which this armed capacity is founded is substantial.


Interestingly, Central agencies are currently and vigorously peddling the ludicrous fiction that the total armed strength of the Maoists across India is just 4,000, with 4,100 weapons - if that was even remotely close to the truth, we would have little to worry about.


Chhattisgarh simply does not have even the numerical capacities to contain an insurgency of this magnitude. Worse, existing capacities remain under-utilised and misdirected, and there is a progressive collapse of political will at the highest levels. Sadly, that means that many more security forces - thrown without plan, preparation or purpose into the conflagration - will fruitlessly lose their lives.


It can only be hoped that, eventually, someone, somewhere, in India's corridors of power, will lose a little sleep over this as well.

(Published in The Pioneer, New Delhi, July 25, 2007)

Tags: Ajai Sahni, QRT, Pioneer, IPCS, SAAG, bastar, Manmohan singh, maoist, naxalite, naxal, guerilla war, peoples war, tribals

Naga Battalions Reign of Terror comes to an end

Adivasi's who have sufffered under their reign of terror for two years
must be heaving a sigh of relief but until the state sponsored terror campaign
Salwa Judum is disbanded nothing can be said about the future
of bastar or Chhattisgarh.

The big question now is will these criminals ever be punished for their crimes ?

Naga police battalion reign of terror comes to an end

A battalion of the Nagaland Armed Police (NAP) has left Chhattisgarh's Maoist infested Bastar region after a two-year deployment during in which it was accused of massacring
several dozens of adivasi's in the name of fighting the Maoists.The philosophy of the
Naga Battalion was best exemplified by the disgraceful deed in which a soldier
from the battalion shot dead a petty shop keeper for a 30 Rs Underwear !

India Enews

Chhattisgarh for sale!

Chhattisgarh for sale!
BIJO FRANCIS
Column: Incredible India
Want to buy a river? Welcome to the state of Chhattisgarh in India! If you are not interested in a river, Chhattisgarh can offer you a forest or a hill. You can do anything you wish with these natural resources. Once bought, you can drain the river dry, bulldoze a hill or clear a forest. It is all yours! If you have any problem with the local people, the state government will take care of them. Those who protest will be charged with fabricated crimes and thrown into prison indefinitely.

There is something fundamentally wrong in Chhattisgarh. In addition to the indiscriminate sale of natural resources, the state government also sponsors armed conflicts between its people. Though the state is governed by an elected government, the Chhattisgarh state government has failed on several counts, including maintaining law and order within the state.

The state administration, which is in corporatization overdrive, is selling its natural resources to corporate entities. This zeal for selling the state's natural resources to the highest bidder has alienated the government from the state's population in remote villages. The direct consequence is an increased affinity of ordinary people to armed resistance promoted by the Naxalite forces operating within the state.

The state administration, in a failed attempt to curb the Naxalites, has armed the local population that it deems to be sympathetic to it to fight the Naxalites. This state-sponsored private armed militia in Chhattisgarh is called Salwa Judum, meaning Peace Mission.

Chhattisgarh, a state that was formed in 2000, has not witnessed a single day in its seven-year history without violence -- either against the state by the rebelling factions or by the state and its private militia against the rebels. No state is justified in using violence to curb violence. The excuse the Chhattisgarh state administration offers for arming a faction of the local population is that the rebels within the state cannot be controlled without resorting to a strategy of counterviolence.

The Salwa Judum has been formed under the leadership of a local politician, Mahendra Karma. Even minors are armed with weapons and trained to kill. The "officers" of Salwa Judum are given a piece of cloth printed with the words "Special Police Officer," and the cloth is pinned to their shirt. This badge of cloth guarantees impunity. Any crime committed by a "special police officer" is left unchallenged by the state's law enforcement officers.

Violence within a state is usually the result of a government that fails to address the needs of its people. It is also often the whiplash effect of the uncontrolled use of force against a community. The fundamentals of governance include listening to and addressing the needs of the people. This normal process of governance, however, is not applicable to the Chhattisgarh state government.

Chhattisgarh is a state that has one of the worst records in India in terms of meeting basic human needs, like food security and the effective implementation of anti-discrimination policies. The state has the largest tribal concentration in India in terms of population ratio. The people of Chhattisgarh are neglected by their administration. Instances of abuse of authority by state officials, ranging from the Forest Department to the local police, are regularly reported in Chhattisgarh. Starvation deaths are common among the tribal communities. Health and sanitation conditions among tribals are the worst in the state.

Day after day the local population discovers that their natural resources are being sold by the state to corporate entities. The rivers, for example, are being sold to "water corporations." Once sold, the corporation prevents the local community from using the river or its resources. Communities that were previously using the river find themselves isolated and subject to coercion overnight. Those who protest are arrested and detained under false charges.

Similarly, land-based natural mineral resources are sold to companies as well. To excavate minerals, the companies that obtain leasehold over the land want the people living on the land removed. Forced eviction is daily news in the state. The evictees are quarantined in camps throughout the state, camps guarded by special police officers from the Salwa Judum. Those who oppose their forced eviction are branded Naxalites, charged with fabricated crimes and imprisoned indefinitely.

These acts of encroachment into people's personal liberties and fundamental freedoms have resulted in chaos and confusion within the state. Any place that is reeling in severe chaos due to malgovernance is fertile ground for the indoctrination of new ideas, even those that advocate violence. The people of Chhattisgarh, the descendents of heroes like Vir Narain Singh, are no different in their tolerance of neglect and abuse. It is natural for an ordinary person in such a context to think of the available options: to resist and fight or face impending death.

Instead of stopping this indiscriminate plundering of the natural resources of the local people, the state administration has resorted to violence to curb opposition to its policies that deprive the state's citizens of the basic necessities they need to survive and live with dignity.

A government is not justified at any point in time in sanctioning the formation of private armed groups to silence the people who are crying out for help. Such a move reflects a government's utter lack of concern for its people and their needs. By allowing, and in fact organizing, its citizens to fight among themselves, the state administration is implementing a policy of divide and rule. The result of this violent game is the state-sponsored anarchy that Chhattisgarh has become today.

A government that resorts to violence has no legal or moral standing to claim the privileges of an administrator of the people. The Chhattisgarh state government has made a mockery of the Constitution of the country. By resorting to violence, the state government has declared that it does not believe in constitutional mandates.

Chhattisgarh and its people require a democratically functioning administration. Such an administration would never plunder the natural resources of its people. Any state is justified in finding ways and means for the better use of its natural resources, but what one witnesses in Chhattisgarh today is a state administration gone mad with greed for short-term benefits.

The current administration in Chhattisgarh is not a government in any sense. It is nothing more than a bunch of brokers who would sell anything and everything to quench their greed.

--

(Bijo Francis is a human rights lawyer currently working with the Asian Legal Resource Center in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the South Asia desk at the center. Mr. Francis has practiced law for more than a decade and holds an advanced master's degree in human rights law.)

UPI

Yesterday Iftiqar Gilani, Today Binayak Sen

By Subhash Gatade

26 July, 2007
Countercurrents.org

Does anybody remember the Delhi bureau chief of Kashmir Times, Mr Iftiqar Gilani who was hounded by the BJP government on fraudulent charges under the draconian Official Secrets Act supposedly for possessing some ‘secret’ documents. Interestingly when it was revealed that all the ‘secret’ documents purported to be in possession of Mr Gilani were easily available online, then the law and order people had no other alternative than to release him.

The world very well knows that why Mr Gilani was treated in such a humiliating manner. The only ‘crime’ the accredited journalist had committed was that he happened to be son in law of a famous Kashmiri leader.

Today the same fate awaits Dr Binayak Sen - a paediatrician by training and profession and a human rights activist by choice. This receipient of the famous Paul Harrison award for work in community health has received a new identity. - A menace to public safety - The Chattisgarh police whose own record of human rights violations would shame even the KPS Gills, has used the provisions of the draconian Chhatisgarh Special Public Safety Act and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act ( a substitute for POTA ) to detain Dr Binayak Sen in the wee hours of 14 th May. And the recent high court order has even refused him a bail.

It has been more than twenty five years that Dr Binayak Sen left his job at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi to dedicate himself to serve the poor and the downtrodden in Chhatisgarh. It was the time when a new workers- peasants movement was taking shape in Chattisgarh ( which was then part of Madhya Pradesh) under the leadership of the legendary leader Shankar Guha Niyogi. The martyrdom of more than eleven workers in Dalli-Rajhara in the immediate aftermath of the assumption of power by the Janata Party government was a news all over the country. Binayak Sen never looked back and continued working for the people despite many highs-lows of the movement. He played an important part in the formation of Shaheed Hospital at Dalli-Rajhara, a hospital run by the workers for the other downtrodden sections of society.

To further his concern for the really needy Dr Binayak donned many roles. He worked on community health projects, ran a clinic, also ran a organic farm near Raipur and was also adviser to the Chhatisgarh government for its community health project called 'Mitanin'. He found himself drawn into the fledgling human rights movement in the state when violations of human rights saw a quantum jump. But for his intervention ( of course alongwith other members of the civil liberty movement) the rest of the world would have never known the killing of twelve innocent tribals at Santoshpur by the security forces of the state supposedly to curb the Naxalite 'menace'. (31st March 2007) He was instrumental in forming an all India fact finding committee of civil liberty organisations to look into 'Salwa Judum' a campaign of arming tribals started by the government and using them as mercenaries. The report brought out by these organisations was an eye-opener. It showed how the state government has even allocated budget for this campaign which it calls a 'spontaneous response of the tribals towards the Naxalite 'menace'.

It was only last year that Dr Binayak Sen, - alongwith other civil liberty organisations and activists - had taken the initiative to organise a Convention in Raipur. The aim of the convention was to highlight the precarious human rights situation in the state, but an important item on their agenda was to focus the attention about a sinister move by the Chhatisgarh government to silence every dissenting voice. In fact Raman Singh led government had already made decisive moves in the direction of enacting a new law 'Chhatisgarh Special Public Security Act' (2006) which had several provisions similar to the (now lapsed) draconian POTA.

It was rigthly pointed out that the proposed act CSPSA not only included violation of the principle of certainty in criminal law (including vague definition of membership and support to terrorist organisations) but also absence of pre-trial safeguards (including insufficient safeguards on arrest, the risk of torture, obstacles to confidential communications with counsel). An important provision which rather made it worse than POTA was the 'virtual impossibility of obtaining bail as there is no provision for remedy of appeal or review of detention.'

Little did any of the organisers or the participants to the convention had the premonition that Dr Binayak Sen himself would be charged under the act, detained for months together by denying bail on flimsy grounds.

Despite campaign by democratic rights activists which were joined in by voices of medical fraternity from the world over, the powers that be seem to be least concerned about his detention. For the powers that be it is not a matter of concern that world renowned intellectuals like Noam Chomsky, Romila Thapar and several others have expressed their 'opposition' to this unwarranted detention of Dr Sen. For them it is not a big thing that 1500 doctors spread in different parts of the world who have been acquainted with the work of their fellow doctor have appealed to the Chhatisgarh government that he be released immediately and all false charges against him be dropped forthwith.

It should be added that 'Medico Friend Circle'(MFC) - a thirty year old organisation of doctors who are working to make health services more accessible to the poor and who have consistently opposed the corporate control over people's health, recently held a press conference in Raipur to oppose Dr Sen's detention. In fact they showed the media a thirty minute CD based on the work of Dr Sen, who is closely associated with MFC's work since his youth. In fact more than thirty well-known medical professionals spread in different parts of the country made it a point to be present in the Press meet and declare their solidarity with their comrade.

But leave dropping charges or releasing him, the courts are is not ready to grant him bail.Dr Sen has been charged with 'a prima facie case that the applicant was involved with some banned organisation' .The high court did not deem it necessary to grant interim relief despite knowing the fact that ' the said meeting between leader of a Maoist organisation and Dr Sen took place in the jail premises themselves' in the 'presence of jail officials' and the letters which the police claimed to have seized from Mr Sen's house were sent from the jail themselves with due stamp of the jail officials.

The Chhattisgarh PUCL has termed this order of the Chhattisgarh High Court as “unfortunate” as the Court has not appreciated all the material facts and evidence of the case as presented by the legal counsel for Dr. Binayak Sen during the arguments. It has also decided to move the Supreme Court so that the highest courts of the country can decide on the merit of the case. It has also resolved 'to take stock of the alarming situation in Chhattisgarh with regard to ruthless use of repressive laws and anti-democratic actions of the State Government and, in turn, formulate future strategy and action plan to defend democracy and restore the rule of law.'

These days media is agog with news of another innocent doctor called Dr Haneef who has been apprehended by the Australian police. It is for everyone to see to what extent the Australian police went in proving that he is a 'terrorist'. It is a mark of the vibrancy of the Australian civil society that people there have stood up in Dr. Haneef's defence. The consistent campaign by the civil liberty organisations with due support from the media has helped expose Australian government's highhandedness in l'affaire Haneef. It is a matter of time that Dr Haneef would be released.

One just wishes that much like their Australian counterpart, the civil society in this part of the globe also wakes up to the innocence of Dr Binayak Sen and tell the powers that be that 'We want him out' !

If the Australians can fight for the human rights of an Indian, should the Indians maintain a conspiracy of silence when one of their own is being brutalised by the state.

Countercurrents.org

Nepal link hint in red strike

It is not difficult to understand why some people in the establishment
want to link this up to the nepal maoists.

Bull Shit Meter

Raipur, July 11: Hint of Nepali Naxalites’ involvement in the Monday night’s Naxalite strike near Errabore in Dantewada district and subtle changes in the rebels’ ploy have puzzled the security top brass.

The agencies probing into the attack that proved fatal to 23 personnel have sniffed involvement of Nepali Maoists in the incident.

“We have reports that several short people resembling Nepalis were part of the team that attacked the security personnel,” R.K. Vij, the inspector-general of police of Bastar range, told The Telegraph.

The investigating agencies are, however, busy establishing if the short Maoists engaged in the action were actually from Nepal. For, Naxalites from Bihar’s bordering areas (with Nepal) have similar appearance, he added.

The change in strategy and the operation of Maoists to trap the security personnel on Monday night has perplexed the senior officers working on the anti-Maoist operation.

The rebels executed their well-planned strategy with perfection to target the force and most of them were wearing bulletproof jackets to counter the security personnel, a senior police officer said.

The telegraph

Policemen walked into Maoists' death trap

It was a well designed ambush. Three men appeared before policemen in a forest and said they could lead them to a Maoist hideout. Straightaway, 115 policemen walked into a death trap without any strategy or back up, leading to the death of 24 of them.F

A CRPF commander who survived the ambush and returned to Arabore base camp in Konta block of Dantewada district, over 500 km from here, recalled vividly the final moments before the policemen were slaughtered.

The commander told IANS over telephone: 'Once the encounter began Monday afternoon in a thick forest over hilly terrain, policemen were standing in the open and firing indiscriminately while Maoists took shelter on trees and hills with huge stocks of arms and ammunition. Our forces could hardly hit them.

'Initially the Maoists fired a few shots in the air that panicked us all. Then there was a brief silence and we thought they had run away. Some of the forces even started going back to the base camp.

'But all of a sudden they attacked with mortars and AK-47s. The special police officers (SPOs) who were well aware of the local terrain ran away, and the CRPF men who were all outsiders were trapped.'

Sixteen of those killed were from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), six were SPOs and two were from the local police force, according to Girdhari Nayak, Chattisgarh's inspector general of police in charge of Maoist operations.

The 115-strong force was led by 28 men from the 'F' company of CRPF's 55th battalion. It included 84 SPOs and three local policemen.

Now senior police officers have been forced to change their strategy.

R.K. Vij, inspector general of Bastar range that includes Dantewada district, told IANS: 'Now forces will be sent in the jungles for combing operation with a pre-laid strategy and with a sufficient number of back up forces.

'The reinforcements will also be kept ready in enough numbers once the forces sneak into the forest for a major operation or in the areas called 'death trap for police' for years, mainly in interior regions of Bijapur, Narayanpur and Dantewada districts.'

Even with the help of helicopters, it took the police almost 24 hours to recover the bodies of their dead colleagues. The Maoists repeatedly fired at the reinforcements that entered the forest, first to look for the missing policemen and then to bring the bodies out.

A few of the bodies bore axe marks beside bullet wounds. The Maoists had looted five AK-47s and over a dozen Self-Loading Rifles (SLRs) from the policemen killed. They had also removed the socks and shoes from the bodies.

The police claimed there were casualties among the Maoists as well, but no body has been found. Rahul Sharma, Dantewada district police chief, said: 'The Maoists have probably carried away the bodies.'

This was the second-worst massacre of policemen by Maoists in Chhattisgarh this year. In March, Maoists had stormed into a police camp in Bijapur district and killed 55 policemen.

indiaenews.com

24 Chhattisgarh security personnel found dead

Raipur, July 10 (IANS) The bodies of 24 Chhattisgarh security personnel, who had gone missing after a gun battle with Maoists in Dantewada district Monday, were recovered Tuesday even as rebels launched fresh attacks, police said.

Bodies of all 24 personnel, including 16 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers, six special police officers (SPOs) and two district policemen, have been recovered in Konta block, over 500 km from here, said Girdhari Nayak, inspector general (Maoist operations), Chhattisgarh.

"The search teams of CRPF and state police, assisted by helicopters, recovered the bodies from a hilly terrain of Konta block, close to Andhra Pradesh border," Nayak told IANS by phone.

"A total of 115 policemen, including 84 SPOs, led by 28 personnel of CRPF's 55th battalion went to the hilly Konta block Monday afternoon to bust a Maoist hideout but about 300-400 Maoists attacked the combing force. The encounter left two CRPF men and five SPOs critically wounded," state Home Minister Ram Vichar Netam told the state assembly.

Police claimed there were casualties among the rebels side as well during Monday's encounter though no militant's body has been found so far.

"The Maoists have probably carried away the dead bodies or their injured comrades into thick forested areas," said Rahul Sharma, Dantewada district police chief.

Meanwhile, a fresh gun battle broke out between armed Maoist militants and policemen Tuesday in Konta block, police said.

"Maoists opened indiscriminate fire on a state police team that had gone into thick forests in the area to search for the missing security personnel," a police official said.

Police estimate that about 5,000 Maoists armed with AK-47 rifles and landmines are active in Chhattisgarh's southern hilly districts. They are backed by about 20,000 cadres who carry self-loading rifles and traditional weapons like bows and arrows.

Khabrein